A Ruler
by elegate1
Summary: In which a girl of flaming hair learns a valuable lesson.


Aurora never wanted to be a ruler.

It was the truth; she was but a child days ago, with meager ambitions of dream-chasing and the golden glimmer of a fairy-tale hero in her heart. A daughter to a duke and an educated lady who knew the time would come in the vague future when she'd have to take her place at her father's throne to succeed him, but a child no less, utterly oblivious to the true meaning of rulership and to the shadows that began to lurk behind the corners of her father's castle once he married she who would become her stepmother. She remembered the fantasies that used to swirl in her mind which hid aside the small thought of embracing her duties. Fantasies of soaring over the clouds, high, so high in the night sky, peering down in glee at the miniscule dots that were the houses and farms littering the countryside…

But then she had died, albeit poorly so, and she had woken up in a strange land where her dreams were realities and her thoughts were now ridden with uncertainty that very quickly matured into purpose when her restless thoughts emerged from their shadowy hiding spots: She was ridden with purpose to save the land of Lemuria. Aurora had always been a very brave and unrelenting girl, never allowing herself to be bested by any sort of fear – her journey across the mystifying and strange lands of Lemuria put her body, mind and spirit to the test.

She grew into adulthood faster than any young girl should have and she faced perils that no sort of creature deserved to be subjected to. She experienced loss, hope, betrayal, fear and pain in a succession much too quick for anyone to withstand, but Aurora endured, and though she took her duties in stride with a bellowing determination radiating from her invincible, heroic heart and her unwavering childish refusal of the concept of defeat, those few mismatched individuals who got to know her kept the secret all throughout their adventure that she was still only a child both in mind and spirit, and that her immense reserves of courage had started dwindling a long time ago, to the point that she could merely clutch onto the tiniest speckle of willpower towards their ultimate confrontation with the Queen of Night, which served as the alloy from which the chains that prevented her heart from shattering were fashioned out of. Moments away from facing her destiny, Aurora knew the links had become brittle as she pushed herself further and further to harden her senses, but again she endured and she brandished her weapon as she leaded the charge.

And despite all, she had won. As impossible as it may sound, Aurora and her peculiar champions of choice defeated the Queen of the Night and saved both mankind and the former inhabitants of Lemuria, bringing about a refreshing new era of peace. Much joy and cheer spread across the land like the first downpours of spring, and the celebrations, parades and praises carried on for months, seemingly ceaseless at first. Those days had been good, Aurora remembered. Snippets of ease, joy and stability she took for herself to fill the last remaining unsullied corners of her soul. She remembered feeling solid and tangible, almost invincible as her inner chains were re-forged into stronger shackles, twice as mighty as before, and as she allowed herself to be a child for a moment longer, with a home, a family and nothing to worry about.

But those days came to an end.

Lemuria was slow to settle after years of nigh-slavery and months of unbridled celebration, but soon enough – much too soon, perhaps – the day came when the Queen Aurora was summoned to a royal meeting for the first time in her rulership, in which she was brought up to date by her ministers on the situation regarding the state of her people and its dire nature. The girl of stunning crimson hair discovered that day just how much she had been ignoring by focusing solely on comforting herself, and just how much there was truly to do. Tensions were high; those left homeless by the floods needed aiding, the humans claimed for steady shelter for themselves, her people still suffered under the sudden attacks of the last standing dark creatures, and everyone still remained rather reluctant to accept and help each other.

Aurora set aside her childish protests to try her hand at ruling, at managing, at deciding, just as her father had taught her, but she soon discovered that even though her word was law, nothing really panned out as she desired in the end. As the months breezed away past her eyes, her subjects continued to drown and suffer across the coasts and riversides, the refugees continued to be mired in conflict and disputes, and a vast number of her pompous and blind-sighted ministers continued to bicker and argue with each other on her very own court, never once resolving any kind of dispute. At first, she had felt the need to scream and to run far away to someplace where nobody could find her. The thought of scurrying back to the arms of her father even crossed her mind at a certain point, but Aurora forced herself to endure once again, bottling every colorful shade of her emotions within the walls of her unbreakable heart as she stumbled her way through the chaotic and seemingly unsurmountable task of being a Queen, giving her every breath to her cause, trying to wrap her head around her duties, all the while she despaired at the tragedy that even though she appeared to be of age she was nowhere close to being an adult, and had no clue whatsoever on how to behave in her newfound reality.

Anybody attentive enough could have foreseen that it was only a matter of time before something would ultimately give in.

The day had been unkind to her; her ministers had been louder and more rambunctious than ever before, her people had come to plead for her aid with twicefold the despair in their voices and pain in their eyes, and worst of all, she was informed that a human refugee camp recently settled in the Plains of Rambert had been razed to mere cinders by a cohort of bewildered beasts.

It was the final crack to shatter her chains – a last dent to make them snap.

Aurora was unable to get a hold of herself that night, and thus the tears fell, before any single hummingbird of Lemuria could flap its fickle wings.

On the highest chamber of the highest tower of her castle, bathed by the delicate, silvery light of the ever-watching moon and her starry companions, the Queen of Light mourned her losses and she mourned her failures. She hesitated, she lost her wind, she doubted, she questioned. She questioned her own worth, both as a ruler and as a daughter. She was not ready to lead, to carry the responsibilities that no child should – because that was all she was on the inside: A scared child tiptoeing her way across a darkened room, utterly ignorant of which way to go.

So she made a choice that night, a final decree. The Queen of Light abandoned her castle behind.

With a last helpless sob her wings fluttered, and the mischievous wind carried her away from her troubles, until the castle became an indistinguishable blurry dot in the distant horizon. She flew until the sun bathed her face with its warmth and then she slept, resting atop an impossibly high branch belonging to a great tree of the Forest of Mahtildis.

She awoke at night with the coming of a forlorn rain, and she took flight once again, drifting aimlessly in the high currents of wind with no purpose, concern or remorse. From moon to moon her journey continued, until her tired frame urged her weak mind to halt and rest. Knowing not how much had she traveled, she found herself quite disturbed by the sight of the giantess Magna; host to the Bolmus people, as she lumbered her way across the sprawling fields, avoiding monolithic windmills in her stride. Famished and restless, Aurora made her way towards her rocky topside above the clouds, where the familiar sight of the city of micemen greeted her eyes in all its nocturnal glory, almost inviting with its inherent chattering and clamoring of a hundred lively inhabitants. But she stuck to the shadows instead, not wanting to find recognition in such a busy abode, as she searched in each nook and cranny of the metropolis for the house of someone who she could proudly call her friend.

Robert opened his door for her gowned in his nightly garments, carrying a waxen candle in his hand and squinting ahead as his glasses had been left on his nightstand. He recognized her in a heartbeat, not needing to 'see' to understand the sadness and hollowness oozing from her every pore. He stepped aside with haste and he did not pry when she pleaded for a bed or when she woke in the morning and she allowed herself, as her Queen, to ransack his food pantry. Attesting to his status as a gentleman, he waited in cold silence as she ate to her heart's content, drinking water from a cup which he refilled four times in total.

She was the one to break the silence in the end, pleading her eternal gratitude to the small mice-man, prompting his cheeks to redden as he politely accepted her warm words. She told him everything; from her very first troubles to end of her latest journey, feeling the sadness of days prior seeping again into her being with each word that spilled from her mouth. But something unexpected happened when she found herself again at the brink of tears, something which would redefine her life in ways she did not know were possible.

Robert made her a proposal.

He spoke with a soft voice and a calm tone that betrayed a sense of wisdom, as he told her of her mistake. She'd been trying to disguise herself as a proper Queen who ruled from her palace when she should have been doing what she did best: facing her problems up close and personal. The miceman understood her plight. As a businessman, it was in his nature to exercise his trade in the presence of his clients both to behold their reactions and to understand their mindsets, earning himself, in turn, trust and comfort from the other party. He told Aurora that in order to see to her subject's plights she first needed to experience them firsthand, and the realization hit the girl like nothing ever had.

Young and clueless as she was, she had failed to see the solution behind the mist of the problem, but now that mist had cleared, and she was free to advance towards her goal. The girl took off with the miceman in tow then, without a clear destination in sight as she set a course to traverse the entirety of her queendom.

And through the course of several months, she drifted across the lands in a journey that would change her forevermore.

First she presented herself to Bolmus Populi to mediate the relations between the micemen and their newest trading partners, the humans, leaving the wandering town after seeing to the agreement of both parties to the terms and claims made by each, and after she saw them starting to mingle together in a seamless harmony.

She set out then towards the coast, where she lent herself to rescue the downtrodden and to rebuild the flooded houses. Amidst the wooden wrecks she saw her subjects working together to salvage the lives they'd lost under the unforgiving tides, regardless of species or social status. Once she was done there she took off once again, accompanied by the miceman and by her Piscean friend as she drifted towards the mainland where she knew she was needed.

Surely enough, she made her way across her queendom, reuniting her mismatched party as she found its members in the midst of aiding those in need. She went there where the humans had settled, where she was showered with kind words after driving away their devious attackers. She went there where the Capilli welcomed their new neighbors and worked with them to expand their meager town into a proper city. The Queen of Light aided them as best she could; only leaving after seeing a dozen gestures of kinship being shared across the streets by a growing and accepting society. Aurora rejoiced at this.

She traveled Lemuria fixing all that was broken until only the doors of her keep were all that remained before her to traverse, which opened as easily as she remembered when her Kategida protector came to greet her, kneeling before his Queen. Aurora treaded down the long halls prying the eyes of the nobles to follow her stride, and she barged into her courtroom, where her ministers continued to bicker with each other, still failing to settle for any decision.

The girl knew as she stood at the threshold that before she'd left months ago she wouldn't have been able to command even the smallest of critters, but her journey had changed her for good, had helped her mature. She'd seen how the people she had saved lived, and began to understand the concept of how they should have been living. She'd learned of kinship, of comradery, and she'd learned a great deal of what it meant to be a ruler: Someone who had the power to gift a life of happiness and security to anyone willing enough to work for it. The girl knew there was still much she'd have to learn if she chose to tread down this path, but that was something she was willing to accept, prepared to withstand the heat as she was now.

She'd embraced the appreciation of her subjects to bolster her hearty chains once more, and now, as she strode towards the throne at the end of the room, Aurora was no longer a small, cowering girl but a right and proper Queen, as ready as she could be to lead her people. She did not despair as she took her place on her throne and as she addressed the room to establish her leadership, leading the council for the first time.

Aurora learned a valuable lesson in the end: A ruler was not born a ruler. A ruler was made. A ruler had to grow into their role by understanding their people and their plights, becoming another one of their subjects to feel what the felt and to live like their lived. Only after doing this a person would be ready to embrace their role, and Aurora, Child of Light, savior of two worlds, was ready to leave her childish uncertainty behind to become the Queen she was meant to be.


End file.
